Still reading? This must mean that your Internet connection is still in play (but you’re now reading as you sit on the floor while leaning against the wall) – or – you’re already moved into The Holiday Inn and are hooked up to their hacker exposed wireless connection!
Read on - to re-live (your possessions are long gone) or to re-energize for bathroom scrubbing……….

Step 4: Pony up $450 to the Post Housing Cleaning Contractors

(.........or buy some kneepads and bleach. Actually – there are sub steps here that must be addressed or we’d be remiss in our Martha Stewart duties). 

       Step 4a. Prior to cleaning, load the dishwasher and washing machine on this end; you’ll look like June Cleaver on that end. As you know, you will be the new one in town. Neighbors will come knocking on your door to "welcome" you and check out everything you didn’t sell or dump in Steps 2 and 3. Do not be the lazy neighbor that spends the first week at the Laundromat while the packing boxes wilt in the carport under the scrutiny of the neighbors. You know that your spouse will not have “hook up washer and dryer” as his priority – he will be organizing tools, guns, remote controls, etc. And, the movers will lose your washer hose and your new house will require a gas conversion kit for your electric dryer. 

       Step 4b. We’re gonna break it to you just like your mom did when you left for college or got married or ran away to the big city - you must physically clean your house! Nasty fingerprints on the door frames? Sticky light plate switches? Cobweb slinging ceiling fans? “Wash me” written in the soap scum on your shower doors? You go girl! The house cleaning fairy is too busy with the other 180,000 PCS-ing families to visit you. Your hands will be red and raw, your nails will break, and the requisite bleach will ruin anything you’re wearing as well as potentially terminate your sense of smell. You have two years to recover before re-experiencing this level of menial labor. Like childbirth, you will forget and will acquiesce to doing it again and again (like we said earlier, tradition).

Step 5: Packers & Movers (aka Shakers & Breakers)

Do not delay – go immediately to the PX and buy many, many cartons of one gallon Ziploc storage bags. These are GOLD during the moving season. You can fit your silverware tray inside a Ziploc baggie and zip it right up. Legos, marbles, Barbie clothes and Power Ranger weapons can find new homes in these baggies! Leftover pain medication can be slipped into a bag; 58 tubes of lipstick; 47 hair barrettes; 23 bows; and 18 nail polishes – zip, zip, zip, zip! The objective? Do not allow the packers to individually wrap each spoon and knife for forkin’ sakes! Your mantra right now should be “easily unpack, easily unpack, easily unpack”.

While engaging in hand to hand combat at the PX over the Ziploc storage bags, maintain your strength to fight for your share of tall, kitchen, odor shield white garbage bags. After executing the purchase - and the neighbor from down the street that tried to grab a box out of your wagon - take these to your house, position a box in each room, go to the drawers - pull out drawers with knobs, personal drawers will be addressed shortly – and start shoving similar contents into bags. Toss a drier sheet in on top, tie up the bag, and label with a Sharpie marker.  Such OCD behavior will allow you to rip open your clothes bags on the gaining end and place all clean (and "Spring Fresh" smelling items) directly into the applicable drawers. Unlike your neighbors who stood outside chatting while the packers wreaked havoc and destruction on product placement, you will not need to separate blouses from books, pants from plastic ponies, shirts from shoes, etc.

A note, here, to the more discreet among us - we are sure you have a few things in your house that you would not want Daryl and his other brother Daryl to see, fondle nor visualize you wearing, holding, or caressing. You must target, strike and engage in decisive action with these “special” items. Collect and whisk directly into a suitcase and immediately place said suitcase into your vehicle for safekeeping.  (Or, just sit around chit-chatting on the phone about ALL the work you have to do and risk Daryl forever remembering your specialness via a quick iPhone shot that is immediately downloaded to his Facebook page.)

Step 6: Locked and Loaded

Goodbye, Farewell, Aufwiedersehen, Adieu - to you, and you and you and you and you! We feel your pain (literally) – like us, you’re riveted to your front door step watching the overloaded moving van (being driven by completely unknown persons that you most likely do not hang out with on weekends) that contains every item that you possess in this world (both valuable and invaluable) pull away from the curb. Your possessions are no longer yours – they are outside your span of control. You have one of three emotions at this exact moment (okay, make that three): a. Relief! The moving pressure is off! You are released from packing tape hell!; OR b. Panic! Your pez dispenser of valium is clicking like mad as you fight like mad to quell your angst driven inner beast, screaming “run, run, run after that truck”; OR c. Smugness. You paid and they played. The 1990s stereo system, bunk beds, and miscellaneous military prints should be sufficient to ensure that your goods reach their destination unharmed. Hey! No one needs to know (particularly the owner of the military prints).

Your six steps to PCS success now covered, dive into that suitcase, eat pizza out of the box or suck down "Happy Meals" at interstate pit stops (“pit” being the operative word), and start shoving the dirty clothes into the trash bags left over from packing. (Note to the lucky families PCS-ing to Germany – Happy Meals on the McDonald’s German menu round out the combo meal with a beer!)

Bon voyage!

What Do You Think?

• Wash it or buy new?
• Skip town or throw a "let's help Pearl paint the house interior back to white" party?
• Donuts or a stereo system to the movers in return for safe transit?